We ran into our first problem while trying to set the correct joint orientations today. We had set the character as Z-axis forward, the left hand side of the model facing X-axis and Y-axis facing upwards. But while trying to set our joint orientations the same way as our model the following error occurred; ‘no zero rotations occurred’.

NOW FIXED

As a result of a mistake we made earlier on in the rigging process which was using rotation instead of moving individual joints this prevented us orientating the individual joints in the fingers on both the right and left hands.

We fixed this by setting the rotational axis of the joints in the fingers back to zero. This allowed orientation be performed on the joints.

Below is a screen shot showing the first stage or rigging complete.

We then moved onto the start of setting up the IK Handles:

But while trying to set up the IK handles we ran into another problem that we couldn’t undo.

Plug-in: The Setup Machine

After further research into the the rigging of our characters we found a plug-in within Maya (The Setup Machine) that is specifically built in for helping to create rigs for characters and reducing time taken to set them up as opposed to doing them manually. Upon finding this plug-in we decided to use this plug-in to aid our rigging due to time constraints of our project.

Below is a screenshot of our character Ernest having been rigged and clothed.